


In The Blood

by copperbadge



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Body Dysmorphia, Gen, Identity Issues, Werewolves, lycanthropy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-12
Updated: 2003-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-22 02:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Vimes's hatred of lycanthropy is suddenly much more personal than he ever expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction is moderately AU to the canonical series and takes place at some point after Night Watch. It was written before Thud, and is not canonical to any book after Night Watch.

Let us go then, you and I,  
When the evening is spread out against the sky  
Like a patient etherized upon a table;  
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets...  
\-- T. S. Eliot

Sam Vimes was naked.

This was not as unusual a state of being for him as it had once been; he'd been chased naked through the mountains by werewolves, and recently run naked through the streets of Ankh-Morpork, though admittedly splattered with enough mud and blood and moving fast enough that he was almost sure he'd preserved at least an ounce of decency. He still had nightmares about it, but he'd had nightmares about being naked on the street before this, everyone did, probably even Carrot did, so that was nothing new. 

What was unusual about the nakedness, really, was that it was voluntary, in a room at the Watch house, and involving a person other than his wife. In fact, the last person he wanted to see right now was his wife. Especially what with the other woman in the room and all.

He did, it was true, have a sheet wrapped around his waist, for Decency's sake. Angua, who was being quite good about the whole thing, had suggested to him that makeshift clothing was going to be, if not a large part of his future, at least a part that ought to be seriously considered.

"Ready?" she asked him. He nodded nervously. "All right. Don't worry, it's nothing I haven't seen before."

"Very funny," he said. And closed his eyes. And concentrated.

Angua did not allow people to watch her Change. There was a reason for that; it was not a pretty sight. But she made herself watch Vimes as his morphic field suddenly flickered, the sheet fell from a waist that was rapidly changing shape, and a wolf stood where Sam Vimes had been, a minute or two before. There was a surprised whine, then a series of growls. Angua, who spoke Wolf even in human shape, recognized several imaginative cursewords. 

***

Some back-tracking is necessary here. Things must be explained. 

According to physicists, who I'm sure think they know what they're talking about, in order to explain anything you must explain everything*, but a few basic facts will suffice, because not many physicists want to admit the existence of the Discworld.

* The philosophical phrase 'In order to bake an apple pie you must first invent the universe' is currently under review by the Idiotic Axioms board.

This is a world, a flat world where the water pours off in all directions endlessly into space. It rests on the backs of four enormous, stoic elephants, who themselves stand on the broad, ancient back of Great A'Tuin, who happens to be a turtle. In a world like this, anything can and often does happen, even without Everything happening first. 

On an otherwise peaceful day, in the Uberwaldean wilderness, a man is running for his life. They've always said, in his home-town of Ankh-Morpork, that he likes to run. Now that's being put to a most stringent test. 

He has a pair of trousers, ancient gloomy things, and an axe; neither are doing him much good in the little rowboat, which is being tracked on either side of a broad river by werewolves, in human and animal form. See the grim fear pass over his face as the waterfall nears? 

See the tumbling, painful descent, and the breathless gasping resurface. See a werewolf land on a rock nearby. See it Change? See the way the man pounds its head hard against the rock. Blood in the water.

And one more werewolf. A close cousin of the von Uberwald family; a noble-looking Ramtop Wolfhound, shaggy black hair rippling down in smooth waves. Snow clinging to its legs as it inches its way out on the ice. The pursued goes under; there is a moment of pure peace, before the wolf is knocked off-balance and pulled down to the water by a fighter who's just punched through the ice to get free.

Under the water, they both struggle, but clever, clever Duke Vimes. He surfaces alone.

Wait, go back. Under the water. The struggle. A claw, yes, raking down his side, and the chill seeping into a dozen other small nicks and cuts. But also, a tooth. A single tooth, digging into his shoulder, taking, if not a pound of flesh, then at least a teaspoon. 

Later, he'll look in the mirror and see a small, crescent-shaped scar, and wonder where it came from. But not too much. The Duke has many scars.

For six, eight, maybe even ten months, it's just a scar. Until the armies of iron-headed Vimesness finally give in against the poison that has slowly been spreading through his body. Until, one night, he rolls over next to his wife, in the light of the full moon, and Changes.

***

Thank the gods Sybil didn't wake up, Vimes thought. That was the only thing he could think of that would make this situation worse. 

He'd managed to somehow gather his wits about him, realize what was going on, and scrabble out of the bed, not to mention the tatters of his pajamas. Once he was out of the moonlight, he'd Changed back, and for a brief moment, it was as though all it had been was a nightmare. Until the shredded nightclothes convinced him otherwise. 

He'd very carefully walked _around_ the patch of moonlight, to the window, and shut the drapes. Only then did he sit down at his little writing desk in the bedroom and try to think.

His shoulder throbbed. He looked at it surprise; an old scar had opened, and thin blood was trickling down his chest. He used a rag of the nightclothes to staunch it. 

Sybil was still asleep, and he wouldn't wake her; young Sam did that often enough without his father taking part. 

He smiled. In the gloom of the bedroom, seeing Sybil under the big quilt, he remembered every reason he'd married her and a couple of reasons he'd only discovered after they were married. 

It was easier to think about young Sam and Sybil than it was to think about this. Hadn't he thought it was a miracle that he got out of the Game unscathed? He knew how careful Angua was, never to actually bite the people she apprehended in 'plainclothes'; her family had no such scruples. 

But why now?

He very carefully put a hand to the seam between the drapes, where a pencil-thin line of moonlight still shone through. The sudden, horrible feeling of being a man and a wolf at the same time raced through his veins, and he quickly withdrew. For a second, his hand had been a paw. 

He couldn't even go outside, he realized. Couldn't go down to Angua's lodgings and wake her up and make her Fix This, because if he stepped outside he would Change, and the thing he most wanted in the world was never, ever to Change again. 

He found a spare pair of pajamas and dressed himself, walking into the nursery. He saw with relief that the drapes were closed here. Sam was awake, not crying but making little sniffly noises and tangling his legs in his blanket. Vimes lifted him out, blanket and all, and went to the easy chair in the corner. 

"Now then, young Sam," he said, selecting a book from the pile nearby. Sybil said it was good to read to him, even if he still couldn't differentiate between baby food and upholstery. Vimes thought most of the books insulted his son's intelligence, but he liked a few of them. This one, already tattered and well-thumbed, was his favorite, and he suspected it was Sam's, too. It helped calm the sudden nervousness that was tingling in every corner of his body. 

Oddly enough, it was written by a troll. Well, dictated by a troll, since trollish writing tended to be two-foot charcoal on stone. 

" _And To Think That I Saw It On Chrononhotonthologos Street_ ," he read. "By Dr. Sluice."

When Sybil woke to an empty bed in the morning, she assumed Sam had gone off to work; she smiled as she wandered into the nursery and saw her husband asleep in the big chair, with young Sam cradled against his chest and a book, obviously slipped from tired fingers, on the floor nearby. 

Sam protested sleepily when she took their son from him, and put the baby back in his crib; by the time she'd settled his blanket around him, her husband had woken fully, and was putting the book away with the embarrassed air of a man who's been caught doing something unusually sweet.

"You should have woken me," she chided, as he stumbled into the bathroom and began to wash. His reply was muffled by the water, but she understood it to mean that he thought she was up in the night far too often as it was. 

"Don't fall asleep on the job today," she said, giving him a kiss just above his cheek, as he shaved. He nodded, and nearly nicked himself. "And I'd like you to have a word with Angua," she added. He went very still, razor poised just above his lips. "She promised to give me the name of her dressmaker."

"Course," he mumbled, washing away the last of the soap. "I'll see to it."

"There's a dear," Sybil said. "Now run on and get dressed."

***

 _And indeed there will be time_  
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,  
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;  
There will be time, there will be time  
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet... 

***

The Watch, in recent years, had seemingly swelled, like a cat, to fill any container it was packed into; there were at least a dozen watch houses in various parts of the city. Some were larger, some were barely more than a room or two and a couple of desks. Each had at least one Sergeant and one corporal, and many had more. 

There were a lot of Sergeants in the Watch.

Angua, however, was one degree above Sergeant; she was a Sergeant at the Yard, where the Commander tended to keep his best officers. With the greater prestige, there was a price, of course. Every woman in the Watch looked to Angua to see how to act, because she'd Made It. Even the other female Sergeants* followed her example. So she made sure to always be on-time, in a decent clean uniform, and tried very hard to be polite. Her success in this arena was sometimes limited, but on the other hand, there were always going to be times when a woman had to be impolite to get noticed. The Watch might not be an old boys' club anymore, but they'd only just taken the No Girls Allowed sign off the treehouse.

* All two of them, but then, Mister Vimes was only in favor of affirmative hiring, and did not promote people based on species or gender, but rather that rarest of all things for any ethnic group, competence.

She was waiting in the canteen for Carrot and Commander Vimes to arrive for the Monday morning meeting, and working on a puzzle in the Times. It was really quite ingenious. They gave you a clue on the left side, and you had to fit the answer into the little white boxes on the right. Carrot had wrinkled his forehead and asked how everyone always made all the words fit together. Angua was blowed if she knew, but she'd heard William de Worde was mad for the things. 

Apparently they were called crosswords, because they made people cross.

ACROSS 3: Dwarvish song, 1978 hit.

Four letters.

Angua thought carefully, and then even more carefully, trying to hide a grin, wrote 'G O L D'. 

DOWN 4: Duke's Nickname.

She frowned. Any Duke? A specific Duke? There weren't more than two or three in Ankh-Morpork; Mister Vimes, of course, and the Duke of Eorle...

Twelve letters. Starts with O; tenth letter A. 

O L D S T O N E F A C E. 

Which gave her the first letter of ACROSS 12, Commonly heard street salutation, nine letters, S T O P T H I E F.

ACROSS 8: Forbidden by Patrician. Five letters. Well, that was easy. M I M -- 

"Good morning, Angua!"

She looked up from the crossword and greeted Carrot and Mister Vimes with a cheerful salute. Vimes, who never needed a crossword as an excuse, jerked his head at the stairs, and she obediently followed. 

"Carrot tells me we've got gnolls," said the Commander, as he dropped into his chair and drummed his fingers on the desk. Carrot and Angua stood to attention. 

"S'right sir," Carrot said. "They're good little blokes, but they get excited when we bring down the buckets with the cleanings from the pigeon cages, and poor lance-constable Blenton had to have three baths after they were done with him."

Angua detected a note of preoccupation from the Commander. She'd seen him do this to Lady Sybil. He very calmly and competently held one conversation while having an entirely different meeting in his head. 

"We'll sort it out. Have Swires tell them they're to wait until the buckets are put down, and if they don't, we'll arrest 'em for assault and make them bathe."

"Gosh," Carrot said. "You'd really do that?"

"Hm?" Vimes asked, looking up at him. "Oh. Yes. Well, perhaps. Hm. Quite. And this Muntab question. Likely to get answered anytime soon? We got any ethnic Muntab...Muntabian?"

"Muntabi," said Angua.

"Got any Muntabi-food restaraunts in the city?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Then we can't have too many of them about, and I won't worry about Muntab."

Angua became aware that she was tense. Her senses were ratcheting up a notch. As Carrot and Vimes continued to talk, she looked covertly around the office, trying to discover why. There was a funny smell -- 

No, not a funny smell. Not very funny at all, actually. 

It was the Commander; not just the anxiety that was pouring off of him now that she came to notice it, but his own personal scent. 

Carrot, to Angua's pleasure, always smelled like armour polish and soap and, in a way she couldn't quite define, honesty. Carrot's smell was like being wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold day. Most of the Watch smelled like sweat and polish and a sort of stubborn determination, which was less like a warm blanket and more like a frontal nasal assault, at least in wolf form.

Mister Vimes smelled, not entirely unpleasantly, like cigars, and just a little like Lady Sybil, and leather oil, and sort of like brass, which also smelled like anger; his scent was far more complicated than Carrot's. Also, just recently, there was a hint of baby powder, but he couldn't help that. 

And now...

She came back to the conversation quickly, because she saw he'd been watching her. And she suddenly realized that _he could smell her, too._

_Oh gods, we've got to get Carrot out of the office. Oh gods. Oh gods oh gods oh gods..._

Then she discovered that she was panicking, and Vimes was apparently -- outwardly -- calm. 

"That's all, Carrot, I think," he said. "I'll want the next month's shift rotas by Wednesday."

"Last Wednesday, sir," Carrot said reproachfully. "Second stack to your left, about half an inch down."

Vimes lifted up an apparently random pile of paper, and pulled out two battered folders. He coughed.

"Then I'll have them back to you by Wednesday," he said. "All right, run along then."

Carrot saluted and turned to go. Angua made pretence; she was stopping almost before she heard his voice.

"Sergeant, if you'd stay behind a minute...Sybil wanted me to have a word with you..."

"Of course, sir -- the dressmaker, right?" Angua was shocked at how easily the lie rose to her lips, but she shouldn't have been. Lying was a part of being a werewolf...

She shut the door behind Carrot, and listened carefully until he was at the bottom of the stairs.

"What's going on?" she asked, in a hiss. He covered his eyes with one hand.

"You smell it," he said.

"Of course I smell it! I'd have to be dead not to smell it! When did it happen?"

"I don't know!" said Vimes. 

"Was it Whiskers Mack? Or Barking Mad Barker, he wouldn't stop at biting a Watchman -- "

"No, I don't -- it wasn't any of them! I wasn't bitten!"

"You must have been."

"I think I'd know if a werewolf bit me, wouldn't I?"

Angua sat, heavily. "You don't know?"

"Not a clue," he answered. 

"Last night was the first full-moon night of the month. Did you...did you Change?"

"In bed, no less."

Angua winced. Been there, done that, bought the flea collar.

"I roll over, I wake up, and hey presto, look at that, four legs," Vimes said. "Gods, I need a drink."

It was something that Angua knew he often thought; to say it aloud, he must really be desperate. She saw his hand go inside his breastplate for his cigar case, and then he sighed, and pulled out a paper packet.

"My cigar case is silver," he said. "I couldn't even pick it up this morning. I put it in my sock drawer with a handkerchief so that Sybil wouldn't know. And then there's this."

He stood and fumbled in a special pocket in his britches, carefully removing his truncheon of office. 

"Rosewood and Llamedos silver," he said, dully. "A fine piece of work."

He set it on the desk. The little silver plate gleamed. Both of them regarded it as they might have done a firework rocket. Angua's brain began to work overtime while Vimes lit a cigar from the packet, and rubbed his jaw worriedly. 

"You obviously got back, though," she said. "Well done there. Not everyone can, you know. I know people who spend three days out of the month without Changing back to human."

"That's pretty chilly comfort, Sergeant. A person doesn't just spontaneously turn into a werewolf, you know!"

"Keep your voice down, do you want the whole Yard to know?" she hissed. He subsided. 

"But it's true. They don't," he said sullenly.

"Well..."

He looked at her. "Well what?"

"Sometimes it...it takes a while to catch. Sort of," she said uncomfortably. 

"To catch? Like it was the flu?"

"No..."

"Angua, bloody damnation, tell me what you know."

"You said you weren't bitten!" she burst out. "When we were in Uberwald I said _sir, are you sure none of them bit you_ , and you said _yes, anyone who got close enough got their skulls bashed in before they could._ So I didn't think I needed to bring it up."

She saw him grip his right shoulder, impulsively. He undid one buckle on his breastplate, and pulled the collar and chain-mail down. A livid red crescent stood out on his skin.

"It started bleeding last night," he growled. "I don't know where it came from. Could have got it fighting up in Uberwald."

"Might have been a tooth," said Angua softly. "It doesn't take any more than that, you know. And if it was just a tooth...you've got a very strong grip on your morphic field, sir. It might have taken this long to have any effect."

"Well, it can stop having an effect right now! I want my morphic field back! Oh my _gods_ ," he said suddenly, staring at his cigar. "Do they always smell like that?"

"I don't mind it. It's part of your scent, like Carrot and soap." She looked at him for a minute, her lips twitching. "Just you wait till you run into Nobby."

"With all due respect for your species, Sergeant, I can't believe this is happening."

"Well, it's not all bad. Gives you another point of view, sort of thing," she said. "And you only have to Change in full moonlight."

"I don't want to Change at all!"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that, sir. If you never Change, then you end up being forced to. It's not as though you can just keep out of the moonlight three days a month. It's like...well, it's sort of like never going to the bathroom. Sooner or later -- "

"Yes, thank you, I get the idea." He pinched the bridge of his nose, another sign that he was having a Bad Day. Angua could relate. "Listen, I need your help with this."

Hence the nakedness. 

***

They'd found an empty store-room in the attic of the Yard, and Vimes had stripped down, and Changed; Angua was impressed with his self- control. But then, this was Mister Vimes, who had a very big internal beast on a very short leash, and was used to existing with anger -- indeed, there were people who'd posited that without anger, he wouldn't actually exist at all. He wasn't well-known for his self-control, but then not everybody knew just how much self he had to control in the first place.

 _Probably wouldn't even chase chickens_ , Angua thought resentfully. He was looking up at her.

"What do I do now?" he asked. He seemed surprised when the words coming out of his mouth weren't Human.

"Don't look in a mirror, whatever you do," she replied. 

One tended to forget, because he was the Commander and a Duke and had enough attitude for both, that Sam Vimes was not a particularly frightening person, physically. He wasn't short, exactly, but he looked taller than he was, being a thin, wiry sort of man. He had sinews rather than muscles. And, although Angua hadn't noticed it at the time, you could see quite a few of his ribs, under his shirt. 

He had scars, the most notable one across his face, but plenty of others as well. Any clothing he wore for any amount of time was soon a textbook example of Rumpled. And even as a human his hair was scruffy, and you couldn't really call his face handsome. Too much jaw, eyes too deep, nose just a hair's breadth too common. But you didn't notice any of that, because his personality overwhelmed it. A cynical, hard-edged personality, like a dull knife across the psyche.

All this translated into the strangest-looking wolf she'd ever seen. 

He was whip thin, with a tail that looked like it'd been chewed by something, possibly a piece of farm equipment. You could still see his ribs, because his black fur, fading to grey, was short and, yes, still scruffy, sticking out at odd angles. There were lighter patches, too, covering scars, and white around the muzzle. He had one ear that flopped over, and one that stood upright; both had chunks missing. The scar across his right eye was a bare patch of skin, angling obliquely from just below his ear to almost the tip of his nose, which was black, with a pink blotch. 

Oh, there was no doubt he was a wolf. He had a rangy, wild look to him, like Gavin and Wolfgang. But there was also the intimation that somewhere, deep in his ancestry, had been a bit of somebody's leg. 

She covered her mouth with a hand. "You'd better change back," she said, aware that she was barking at her commanding officer. "I won't look."

"How very kind of you."

She had to hand it to him. Even as a wolf, he managed to sound sarcastic. 

"You have to tell Lady Sybil, sir, you know that, don't you?" Angua asked, making good on her promise not to watch the Commander as he struggled back into his clothing. When she heard the buckles snap on his armour, she turned to meet his eyes. "You have to tell her, sir."

"Why?"

"Because it's something a person wants to know about their spouse! It's not like a...like a bunion, sir. You'd want to know if Lady Sybil was spending three nights a month with four legs and a tail, wouldn't you? It affects her. And young Sam. And Carrot, for that matter. You won't be able to hide it from him. I couldn't."

"I don't intend to. There must be a way to stop this. It's madness." He saw her look, and sighed. "Listen, you know you're the exception to the rule, Angua. You're a good officer and I will admit, under duress, that perhaps not all werewolves are nutters like..." he trailed off.

"Wolfgang, sir. It's all right. If you hadn't killed him, I would have."

"Right. But that doesn't mean I want to be one. I have enough problems to deal with."

"You're preaching to the choir, sir," she said, as they walked down the hallway, and descended to the next level, where many of the Yard's regular officers had quarters. Carrot lived here; Angua technically lived at Mrs. Cake's, but in reality she rarely spent any time there. "It's not easy."

"There must be a way," he repeated stubbornly, leading her down again to his office. Angua, seeing his nameplate on his desk, came to a sudden understanding.

There was nothing her Commander had ever put his mind to and been disappointed in. 

True, this was because he rarely misplaced his own specific brand of zeal on hopeless tasks, but he was also remarkable for getting his own way. He'd successfully drowned his misery in alcohol until he'd come up against the bottle, and then he'd kicked it -- going on six years now, and he was rightfully proud of that. He'd helped prevent a war. He'd arrested a dragon. He'd taken on Wolfgang without a second thought. 

Well, probably with lots of second thoughts, but without any actual hesitation. 

It wasn't that Mister Vimes was a hero, particularly, but he was a stubborn, bloody-minded bastard who would give you hell until he dropped but would never, ever give in. And now he was up against something that was as inevitable as Nature and twice as frightening. 

"How many werewolves are in the city now, Angua?" he asked. She pursed her lips.

"Maybe a hundred, mostly family types. Born and bred to the paw, as it were," she said. "Werewolves like...well, like you...maybe five. Sad cases, usually."

He gave her a dry look.

"We can't round them up, can we? That'd be trouble for all concerned," he said musingly. "How does one go about talking to a werewolf?"

"One doesn't, generally, unless they want to be talked to," she said. "There's always...well, 'plainclothes'..."

She saw the Commander open his mouth, and was saved by a brisk knock at the door. He pointed to her. "We're not done. Come in!" he called.

"Sam, Havelock sent a boy down to the house, he says you've missed your meeting entirely, and you left a _mess_ \-- oh, hello Angua, good to see you -- an absolute mess in the bedroom this morning."

Sybil was a good woman. She was a kind woman. But when she was on the track of something, she could be like a force of nature. She held out a scrap of cloth, stained with blood.

"I found this at the writing desk, and the laundry girl says that your pajamas were torn to shreds. Did you get into some kind of scrap in the middle of the night, in your bedclothes?" Sybil asked. Sam accepted the rag, slowly. 

It was a pair Sybil had given him, blue cotton with white pinstripes. He'd rather liked it. Angua cleared her throat meaningfully.

"Bit of an accident," he mumbled. "Angua, would you go clacks his Lordship -- "

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell her," said Angua. 

"Sergeant -- "

"I mean it, sir!"

"Tell me what, Sam?" Sybil asked. 

"Tell her!" Angua said, and suddenly both Vimes and his wife noticed that she was near tears. Sybil gave him a dark look, and went to her. "If you don't, I will," Angua continued.

"Are you all right, Angua?" asked Sybil. "Sam, what's going on?"

"It's fine, Angua," said Vimes. "I'm telling her. Sybil, listen to me for a minute, all right?"

Sybil had the look of a woman expecting to hear something she desperately doesn't want to actually know. It occurred to him that perhaps she thought he and Angua -- oh dear... 

He stood and crossed to Sybil, putting his hands on his hips and looking down at his boots, trying to discover how to say it properly. 

"I'm a werewolf," he said.

He was almost sure that wasn't the proper way to say it in any possible universe.

"A what?" Sybil asked.

"A werewolf. It's all very...involved," he said, making vague shapes with his hands in the air. "It's just happened."

The look from before was gone; now Sybil had the look of a woman who had expected one thing and gotten something so entirely different that she was at a loss for what to think. 

"Did Angua bite you?" she asked, looking from one to the other. He shook his head, and touched Angua's shoulder.

"You should go clacks his Lordship," he said gently. "Tell him I've had a sudden illness."

"Yes, sir," Angua said, the relief clear on her face. He could imagine why; no-one likes to see someone just like them lying about it. When she was gone, Sybil took her seat, thoughtfully.

"It wasn't Angua," he said, leaning against his desk. "We...that is, Angua, who knows a bit more about this sort of thing than I do...Angua thinks maybe when we were in Uberwald, one of the wolves might have nicked me." 

For the second time that day, he bared the scar; Sybil winced when she saw the angry red colour. 

"Tell me what you know," she said quietly. 

"It isn't much," he said, suddenly nervous. When Sybil got quiet like that, it was usually because she was preparing to be quite loud. He'd only really ever seen that two or three times, and never, thank the gods, aimed at him. 

"Tell me anyway, Sam." She touched his hand. "It does you good to talk," she said. He gave a little, oh dear, a bark of laughter. And told her.

***

 _Oh, do not ask "What is it?"  
Let us go and make our visit._

***

Sybil, it had to be said, took it rather better than Carrot. She merely looked concerned, and patted her husband's hand, and told him it would be all right. She said they'd never have to worry about young Sam wanting a pet. It was Sybil's way, he knew, of trying to take him out of himself.

She agreed with Angua that Carrot ought to be told; Vimes wondered how many times he was going to have to repeat it. 

_Hi, my name is Sam, and I'm a werewolf..._

_Hi, Sam..._

Carrot, when told, looked as Vimes always imagined he'd looked when his father took him aside and explained that the reason Carrot was three times taller than anyone else in the mine was because he wasn't, strictly speaking, a dwarf. It was the way his eyebrows knitted together and his honest bright eyes roamed from Angua to his Commander to Lady Sybil and back. You could see the gears turning slowly in his head. 

If he said he was sorry to hear about the Commander's predicament, he'd hurt Angua no end. But he obviously couldn't congratulate him. Finally, he settled on a safe topic, something that probably really was a concern for him.

"Will you be leaving the Watch, sir?" he asked. Vimes shook his head.

"If Angua can do it, I can do it." 

Carrot looked dubious. "Well, but Angua's sort of...grown up with it."

"It's three nights a month. And I don't intend it to be for long," he snapped. "If there's a way to do it, there's a way to undo it."

"That's taking a lot on faith, sir," Carrot said slowly. 

"Then let's find some fact to back it up," said Vimes. 

Angua caught Carrot's eye. Spend long enough as a copper, and you treat everything like a crime. He'd already thought of finding witnesses. 

They recognized the signs. The Commander was winding up. He did it at the start of most cases he handled personally. Lady Sybil recognized it too. She stood, and kissed her husband on the cheek. "I'll see you tonight," she said. 

"I'll be home before sundown," he replied. 

Which was true, in a manner of speaking. 

***

Sam Vimes would be the first to admit that he was not the most brilliant thinker on the Disc. He wasn't the most well-educated, either, though in the years since his promotion to Commander he'd managed to improve himself in a number of areas*. He'd read Tactitus; admittedly, only because here was a man just as cynical as himself, who'd conquered most of the Disc in his time. Vimes knew the city as well as anyone did, except for Carrot, whose knowledge of the streets and alleys was borderline obsessive. 

* For example, if you wanted a succint historical summary of the city, Vimes was your man. It might not be objective and might occasionally be inaccurate, but nobody could sum it up quite like the Duke. Pithy was what it was. Liberally sprinkled with interesting personal remarks generally inappropriate for small children.

Despite this lack of genius, or perhaps because of it, he'd developed a method of investigation that had become standard Watch procedure. It consisted, more or less, of an organised system of asking every possible question about everything ever. Physicists would be in happy tears over Vimes' methodology.

He sent Carrot up to the Patrician's Palace to handle things with Vetinari; a clacks went up to the Ankh-Morpork embassy in Bonk, from the Watch's Igor to his uncle Igor, who served at the embassy, asking if he could look around for solutions to little problems like this. Igor also tried subtly pumping Reg Shoe for any information the Office of Undead Rights might have about it. 

Vimes himself went up to the University. Normally he walked the streets when he wanted to think, but at the moment he got nervous every time a dog ambled past. He hurried down the alleys leading to the University like a fugitive. The Library would be a nice, quiet place to do some thinking and incidentally ask a couple of questions. 

The Librarian of Unseen University had been an orangotan for, well, as long as Vimes had known him. He'd been deputised years ago, and was far more good-natured about the Watch than most human residents of the city. He chattered excitedly when the Commander walked into the great open atrium of the Library, under a newly-constructed dome, which was a replacement for the one Vimes had fallen through a few months previously. 

The Librarian thumped around the circulation desk and threw the sort of enthusiastic salute only attainable by a creature with four-foot arms. It lasted about six seconds before he wrinkled his nose, did a comically dramatic double-take, and pointed.

"That's not polite, you know," Vimes sighed. 

"Eek!"

"Thank you, not one person has been kind enough today to point out to me that I smell like a wolf."

"Ook. Ook _ook_..."

"I'd _love_ a book on werewolves. Yes, that would make my life complete."

The Librarian, who understood sarcasm and even occasionally employed it, was impervious to it in others. He knuckled off towards the stacks, the Commander following behind. They wandered through the more mundane books, the ones that merely rustled on the shelves; when they reached the point where there was an occasional chain running across the spines, Vimes began to get nervous. Finally they ended in a dark, dim corner made by two shelves meeting, and the Librarian deftly swung himself up to the top, a good two metres above Vimes' head. 

"Ook," he said. Vimes caught the book deftly when it fell. The Librarian looked approving. He liked it when people respected books. 

" _Anatomyie of Uberwald Magicks_ ," he read. "This isn't going to bite me, is it?"

The Librarian shook his head, and swung back down. He took Vimes' hand and led him back the way they'd come, carefully following what Vimes now realized was a chalk mark he'd been making to keep track of where he was. It's very important, in a magical library, to pay attention to where you're going, lest you wind up where you've been, or where you oughtn't to be*.

* Such as a coffin in the ground. 

When they reached the front desk, the Librarian held out an imperious hand. Vimes looked at it, confused for a minute, and then reached into his back pocket. A sad little paper library card labelled "Community Borrower" was presented. He might be His Grace, Sir Samuel, Mister Vimes, or Old Stoneface in any other part of the city, but in the Library, which was after all a University institution, he was just Samuel Vimes, Community Borrower. It was nice, in a way. 

The Librarian ceremonially noted the name on the card, wrote it on the slip of paper in a pocket in the back of the book, filed the slip, and enthusiastically stamped the due date on another slip glued into the book's cover. Vimes accepted the library card, the book, and an admonitory "Ook!" about late return fees with good grace. He probably deserved it; the Librarian had been very stern when he'd returned his last book with a broken spine and foxed pages. The fact that the book had been through a war in Klatch was immaterial to the implacable ape. 

Vimes, trailing cigar smoke thoughtfully, opened the book when he was about five minutes from the Yard, and sighed.

It was in Uberwaldean. 

He thought about returning it, but of course he knew people from Uberwald, didn't he? Angua, Cheery and Igor, and Otto Chriek down at the _Times_ office. Knowing Carrot, he probably spoke it by now, too. 

He let himself into the Yard through a side door, and lurked his way down to the basement, where Igor and Cheery were sharing workspace these days. 

"Good afternoon, sir," Igor said, looking up from his work, which it was always best not to examine too closely. "Nothing from uncle Igor yet. Any newth on the library front?"

"Not sure," Vimes answered curtly. "See what you can make of this." He tossed the book on the table. 

"Well, I could make a paperweight out of it, or maybe a leaf preth -- " Igor saw his Commander's look. "Right you are, sir." He picked up the book and thumbed through it. Nobody could thumb like Igor; it was probably the fact that he had three of them. Five, if you counted the two growing in the planters behind his desk.

"Interesting," he muttered. "I'll have to read through it. Get you a report on it tomorrow."

"Right, then, carry on," Vimes said. "I'm off. If you find anything sooner, bring it up to the house with you, all right?"

He acknowledged Igor's salute* and slouched up the stairs. Nobody bothered him as he left the Yard and began the walk home; either word had gotten out -- which, despite his officers' discretion, would not be unlikely -- or it was just another day in the Watch, and everyone was too busy to notice. He rather hoped it was the latter. 

* Almost as interesting as the Librarian's, and a fascinating procedure for a man with six fingers and no apparent brow-line.

***

Vimes would rather have died than admit it, but like most coppers he carried an iconograph tucked in the inside lip of his helmet. Carrot had carried a diagram of a particularly interesting mine shaft until he got an icono of Angua. As far as Vimes knew, Angua probably had one of the Captain. No-one had ever inspected Nobby's, but Fred Colon had one of his kids and his new granddaughter. Cheery had a couple of fashion iconographs from the newspaper in hers. 

He'd kept an icono of Sybil, until Sam was born, and then replaced it with one of the both of them. It caught his eye when he hung up the helmet on its peg. He decided that he would, for once in his life, ignore the problem at hand. 

Easier said than done. 

He brooded on it as he put his head into the nursery to check on his sleeping son; as he wandered down to the dragon house to see how the hatchlings were doing; as he hurried back up to the house before sunset; as he ate dinner with Sybil. He brooded on it while they talked of other things, his mind only half in the conversation. Sybil didn't seem to mind. She was a better woman than he probably deserved, he thought, when he saw the worry in her face.

They were just walking into the library -- which had heavy curtains good for keeping out the moonlight -- when Wilikins appeared at Vimes' elbow.

"Sergeant Angua to see you, sir," he said. A golden wolf lurked just behind him. Only Wilikins could make this seem normal.

"Ah." He glanced at Sybil, who shook her head and smiled.

"I think you'd better go with Angua, Sam," said Sybil. "It's better this way."

"I could stay -- one night won't hurt -- "

"Have a good night, dear," she said firmly, and kissed his cheek. He sighed, and turned to Wilikins.

"All right, Wilikins, here's where the famous butlerly discretion comes into play. I want you to leave a fresh change of clothes in the old scullery and tell the servants they're to keep out. I won't be back until late."

"Of course, sir," Wilikins, the perfect butler, seemed to understand without actually knowing anything. Vimes gave him a curt nod and followed Angua down the hallway. She sat and turned away as he undressed carefully, and Changed.

"I was going to have a nice night at home, you know," he growled, as they trotted out onto the mansion's grounds. "What's going on?"

"Thought I'd..." Angua had the grace to look embarrassed. "Well, sir, you ought to talk to some of the others, and I thought it'd be... you know...good to get out on the street. Word's all over town about you -- nobody knows who you are, but it's a small community. They've smelled the new wolf. If you don't go to them, they'll track you down and find you out."

"Just what I need. All right then, where are we going?" asked Vimes, looking around him. Well, not looking, really. The world, visually, faded into a wash of whites and greys. But the smells, oh, the smells. Like coloured fire, everywhere. And with four feet, you could really feel the street. Ankh-Morpork was the same old city, but wonderfully new. 

Angua, who was no longer a shaggy, golden wolfhound but a cloud of ochre scent, trotted down the street with confidence.

"Think of it as a warm-up," she said. "This is a different world, sir. Best if you see a few things before we meet the others."

She led him out of Ankh and down a dim alley near the Shades, where they bumped through a door that had no knobs or handles -- as if this place catered to people who didn't always have hands, or the ability to turn doorknobs.

The Igor who ran the bar at Biers was one of the first Igors in Ankh-Morpork, and he knew Angua of old, in wolf form or otherwise. 

"Evenin', lady," he said, taking two bowls off the assorted glassware behind the bar. When he saw Vimes, slinking in behind her, he grinned. 

"Who's yer friend, wolfie?" someone called. Vimes growled, and the laughter stopped abruptly. The voice of authority doesn't change much from one species to the next. 

Four bowls plonked down on the floor, under the bar; two of water, two of some kind of chopped, well, it had probably once been meat...

"This is embarrassing," Vimes said; indistinctly, because his muzzle was buried in a bowl of dog self-proclaimed-food. 

"It's a dog's life," Angua answered. "Which reminds me. You need a name."

"Got one," Vimes replied. "Got two, in fact. Take your pick."

"Not like that, and you know it. You go about saying who you are, they'll laugh you out of town, if the humans don't ride you out on a rail. You need a name for this world. Like Barking Mad Barker, or Yappy, or Bloody Haleh."

"Bloody Haleh?"

"She's sort of like...well, she's sort of one of the pack leaders. She's been in Ankh-Morpork longest, I think."

"Should I ask why she's called Bloody Haleh?"

"She spends a lot of time up near the slaughterhouses."

"Urgh," said Sam Vimes, tearing into a hunk of something grey, and covered in suspicious gravy.

"It's all about what you are to other people. There's Furry Dave, and Stripes, and Katie Wag, and Lenny the Stink..."

"What do they call you, then?"

Even as a wolf, Angua looked embarrassed. "Well, I don't spend much time with the pack. They're not very pleasant people, really."

"But you do have a name, don't you?"

"Yes..." 

He waited, dribbling water from one of the bowls.

"Dog Anny," she said, in a low whine.

"Dog Anny?" he asked.

"Yes."

" _Dog Anny?_ And you allow that?"

"Well, it's better than Lenny the Stink, isn't it?"

"Why on the Disc -- "

"Because I've been...domesticated," she said. "I'm a city girl. I work for the city, I have an...Understanding with a human. A little bit of wolf, a little bit of human. Dog. Get it?"

"That's horrible."

"Well, like I said, I don't spend much time with them. They tend to pick their own names for you, but we might as well give it a try."

"Don't suppose there's an opening for Scar," he asked hopefully. "Good tough name, Scar. Sounds sort of like Sam."

"Already got one. Scarface Sam, actually."

"Oh yes?"

"Yes, you've met him -- works up at Eliza's All-Night Pizza."

"The counter boy?"

"That's the one."

"Hm." He licked the bowl clean, and then looked disgusted with himself. "I'm no good at this sort of thing, really."

"We could call you Floppy."

"Very funny." She saw him twitch his ear, trying to make it stand upright like the other one. Losing battle.

"Or City Boy. Almost none of the werewolves were born in Ankh-Morpork. That'd set you apart."

He was about to address the odds of that happening, roughly one in never, when a third wolf trotted out from under one of the booths. 

"Evenin', Dog Anny," he said. Vimes sat on his haunches, warily, and watched.

"Evenin', Butcher," Angua answered. 

"Hear the howl tonight? Word is, new wolf in town. This him?" Butcher asked. He looked more, well, more wolfish than Vimes; probably a purebred, Vimes thought bitterly. 

"Not new," Angua answered smoothly. "Except to us. This is City Boy. He's from around here."

Butcher regarded him with interest. Vimes realized that he was trying to stare the other wolf down. And succeeding.

"City Boy, eh? Looks more like Scruffy to me," Butcher said, looking away. Vimes knew he'd won a minor battle, but lost a major war. Scruffy he'd been dubbed; Scruffy he would remain for as long as he was a part of the Pack. 

"Goin' to run with us tonight, Dog Anny?" Butcher continued. "Scruffy's welcome to come along. Haleh won't be there, so I'm in charge."

"Thought we might," said Angua. "Scruffy?"

Vimes felt a growl rumbling in his throat, and cut it sharply. "Do we have a choice?" he asked. Barked. Whatever.

When they were out in the street again, Butcher saw a dog he had to have a word with, and ambled away; Vimes stuck close to Angua as they headed for the city walls. 

"Butcher's all right," she said. "I knew him in Uberwald. Decent enough, never hunted wolves. Almost never ate humans," she added. "Doesn't eat them at all, anymore. I think he's got a sheep ranch hubwards of the city. I never see him except in the Pack."

"A prince among wolves."

"There are plenty worse."

"Just what exactly does the Pack do in my city?" Vimes asked. "I'm not sure I like the idea of a bunch of wolves running around the streets at night."

"We don't. We run around outside the city," she answered. "It's really just an excuse to...hah...let our hair down. We do a little howling, chase a few carriages, maybe run some livestock around. Good for them, I think. Keeps them on their toes," she said philosophically. "Butcher makes sure someone gets paid if anything gets destroyed."

She stopped, then, because he had; his tail was twitching, and his nostrils trembled. 

"Do you smell that?" he asked. She sniffed cautiously. Just the usual scent of Ankh-Morpork -- and a hint of fear.

Before she could answer, he'd bounded off, paws barely touching the ground. Angua sighed.

"Scruffy Vimes, canine enforcer. Wonderful," she muttered, and took off after him.


	2. Chapter 2

_And I must borrow every changing shape_  
To find expression...dance, dance  
Like a dancing bear  
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.  
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance... 

***

The _Times_ tried to sort things out later, but there are some stories that just won't ever really be told completely.

The shopkeeper swore up and down that he'd just been locking up when an unlicenced thief had pulled a one-shot and forced him to hand over the contents of the cash register, after which a giant demon had leapt out of the alley and attacked. 

The man in the Watch cells said he'd been walking home, minding his own business, when a big black dog with orange eyebrows knocked him down and planted the one-shot on him. Captain Carrot took a rather dim view of this story.

The one witness, an elderly woman who was sweeping off her front step, claimed that the thief had been about to make a pretty clean getaway when a dog had indeed hurtled out of nowhere and knocked into the unlucky robber. According to her, it had wrestled the one-shot clean out of the man's hands, and was shaking the man like a limp chew-toy when a couple of Watchmen showed up and the dog bolted. She swore it was joined in its headlong flight by another, rather better-groomed dog. 

Angua finally caught up with her Commander near Small Gods cemetery. 

"Did you see that?" he asked, pacing back and forth in front of the gates, excitedly. "Did you see how fast it was?"

"You can take the man out of the uniform, but you sure can't take the uniform out of the man," she said with a sigh, and flopped down on the cobblestones. She was trying not to show how worried she was; he'd done that man pretty badly. He didn't seem to realize he'd nearly taken his arm off.

He'd told her about the Beast, once. She'd never seen it, except for a hint sometimes of animal rage in her Commander's eyes, quickly stifled. That had been it, clear enough. He'd have killed the man if he wasn't chased off. And he didn't notice. 

_Oh bloody hell._

"It almost makes it worth it, doesn't it?" he asked, sidling out of the way as a carriage rolled past. Angua looked up at him. 

"I guess so," she said. 

"A one-shot in my city! I hope he goes rabid," Vimes said. "I -- oh. No. What _is_ that?"

"Smells a bit like Nobby? And a bit like privy carpet?"

"That's the scent."

"Hi, Gaspode," Angua sighed. The little terrier limped out of the shadows, warily.

"It's the horrible small dog that's always hanging about," Vimes said in surprise. "I know you."

"Sure you do. Everyone knows Gaspode. Give Him A Biscuit," Gaspode said depressively. Vimes stared. "What? Never seen a talkin' dog before?"

"Gaspode, this is Scruffy. He's new," Angua said briskly. "We're going to go run with the Pack tonight."

"Here, I know you too," said Gaspode suddenly. "Mister -- "

"Don't say it," Vimes barked. 

"Ooh. Isn't this an interesting wossname," Gaspode chuckled wheezily. "Never fought I'd see you hangin' about in cognito street."

"If you tell anyone, I'll -- "

"Bite me? Make my night."

"I'll find you, Gaspode, and I'll give you a _bath_."

Even Angua winced. Gaspode cringed.

"There's no need to be talkin' about that," he whined. "I ain't done nuffin to you. Scruffy, was it? Never seen you before in me life."

"And you'd do well to remember it," snapped Suddenly-Glad-To-Be-Scruffy. All three froze as a howl went up from outside the city wall. Angua cocked her head, listening intently.

"Hubwards gate," said Angua.

"Doesn't sound like they're happy about me," said Vimes.

"I'm not hangin' about to find out," said Gaspode.

***

The Pack, as it turned out, was not the keen and cunning assemblage of vicious wolves that Vimes had imagined. Instead, it was more like a... well, like a hobbyist's club of some kind. Wolves of every size, shape, and colour, about thirty in all, were gathered at a little pond near the Hubwards gate, howling and greeting each other and generally making a racket. Very few were as sleek and well-groomed as Butcher and Angua; some even looked as though they'd encountered a rather bigger and more vicious version of whatever had attacked Vimes' tail. 

All of them fell silent when he and Angua approached.

"Allo, Dog Anny," one of the wolves said. "This him, then?"

"Butcher were tellin' us about him," said another one. He tried to sniff Vimes' -- well, Vimes didn't give him the chance. His jaws snapped a few inches from the other dog's whiskers. Angua winced.

"Ooh, high and mighty," the other one said, unperturbed. "He's new, in't he?"

"Don't be common, Furry Dave," Angua said sharply. Furry Dave had the decency to flatten his ears and wag his tail apologetically. "Scruffy hasn't been one of us very long."

 _And don't intend to be one much longer_ , thought Vimes. 

"Thinks he knows his business, though," said the first wolf who'd spoken. Vimes knew, without having to ask, that this was Lenny the Stink. "You're nuffin in this Pack, you get me, Scruffy?"

Aha. It was like that. Vimes regarded him coolly.

"And what're you, Stink?" he asked. Several of the others let out little growls of amusement. 

"M'head Growler. That means I keep things orderly. Like a p'liceman," Stink said proudly. Angua and Vimes exchanged a solemn look.

"So who's your boss?" Vimes asked.

"Why?"

"I don't want to waste my time on small fry."

There was something about werewolves. They made Vimes suicidally witty. 

"Small fry?" Stink asked, as if he hadn't quite heard him correctly.

"Well, I don't guess if I beat you it'll make much difference, one way or another," Vimes continued. Angua glared at him, but he pushed onward. "So if you'd point me in the direction of someone who actually matters in the Pack -- "

Stink leapt. 

He was an experienced fighter, and in his own way was probably pretty good at the job of head Growler. He might have made a good copper. But Vimes was a better copper, and a faster thinker. Fighting on four legs was different from fighting on two, but the idea was the same. Stuff the Marquis of bloody Fantailler.

It was over quickly. Vimes sidestepped the leap, butting his head against Stink's paws and tripping him. The other wolf flipped over, and Vimes was at his throat, teeth closing over his skin -- 

He fought the sudden and terrifyingly overwhelming urge to bite. _No, don't kill him --_

_But he leapt first!_

_That doesn't mean --_

_Kill._

_Kill 'em all._

"Don't do it," Angua whined softly. "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it."

 _Don't do it._

He fought down the red rage that was the incarnation of the Beast, the rage that rose faster and stronger and harder than it ever had before. His jaws tightened, and Stink whined too.

It was the look in the other wolf's eyes that finally did it. He tightened his bite just that much more, enough to draw blood, and then retreated. 

This time, the growl that went up from the Pack was one of admiration.

"Looks like Scruffy's doing all right for himself," said Butcher, appearing from the shadows. "Let him up, Scruff. That's enough from you too, Lenny. No, Lenny, there's no need for that, nobody's taking your job." Butcher trotted around Vimes, his focus so intense that Vimes, still reeling from the battle, instinctively laid his ears back.

"I'm not going to bite you, Scruffy," Butcher said with a doggy laugh. Vimes had the sudden sense that Butcher was, in his own way, as powerful to the Pack as the Patrician was to the city. And as ruthless. "You're a friend of Dog Anny, and that's good enough for me. But I think it best if you wait a while until you run with the Pack. I think you ought to learn not to attack our Growler first."

" _I_ didn't -- "

"Perhaps the _next_ full moon, Scruffy," Butcher said firmly. "Anny?"

"Best we stay, si -- Scruffy," Angua said quietly. Vimes looked rebellious, but he sat quietly with her as the others took off for a distant farmyard. Chickens squawked.

"I didn't want to chase chickens anyhow," Vimes growled. Angua nodded.

"I know," she said. 

"They aren't very nice, you're right."

"No, sir." Angua paused. "I'm going to remember what you did to Lenny."

"Oh yes?"

"Whenever I'm having a bad day, it'll cheer me up."

***

William de Worde was quite proud of saying that the Press never slept. Gunilla and Boddony, who actually had to run the press, weren't quite as enthusiastic about it, but since the _Times_ brought in more gold than any mine either of them had ever seen, they tolerated it quite well. 

It was true that the lights were rarely off in the _Times_ office. Even when the editors of the paper did sleep, there was always someone fiddling with the mechanisms, or filing a late report, or picking up the early edition. 

The old cellar had been boarded up after an unfortunate incident where two tons of molten lead cooked a man alive in it, but Ankh-Morpork was rich in cellars, and another one had been discovered and opened on the far side of the warehouse. Otto had half of it for his iconography equipment, and shared the other half as sleeping-quarters with the press-dwarves on the day shift. 

All of whom were now awake, and most of whom were extremely angry about it.

"All right, all right, zere's no need to get zer garlic out," Otto said, waving his hand at them as he climbed up to the ground floor and gave Igor a weary look. "Go on, back to bed vith you all, I vill handle everyzing."

Otto was a black ribboner, and he tried hard to blend in. It wasn't easy. Not only was he a vampire, with all the slavery to tradition that it entailed, but he was the sort of personality who will always find a way to draw attention to himself, even if he doesn't really want it. 

His pajamas, for instance. 

Most vampires were completely at home only in evening-wear. You couldn't beat a good old-fashioned tailcoat for lurking around and attacking young women in. Otto had grasped the idea of modern clothing, but his sense of tradition kept creeping back. 

There was no doubt they were pajamas. They were flannel. Red flannel, with little dancing bats on the pocket. And a waistcoat, and tails on the back. And a cape.

Igor, who considered himself a modern young man of Ankh-Morpork, took a minute to savour a real taste of the old country. Otto's slippers had smiling fangs sewn on the toes.

"Vill you have tea?" Otto asked, walking to a sad little stove in the corner and putting a kettle of water on to boil. 

"Pleath," Igor said. "I know it's late but I wanted to come down as soon as I -- "

"Ah, yes, it iz fine," said Otto. "Tomorrow iz my day off, I vas goink to szleep in anyhow."

"I thought I ought to athk you about this," Igor said, sliding the book across the table to Otto, who picked it up and gave it a quizzical glance. "I'm on official Watch business," Igor said proudly. "Want to thee my badge?"

Otto examined the badge, too. He was a man interested in details.

"Vot business is zis?" Otto asked, holding up the book.

"Well, we've got a werewolf in the Watch who doethn't want to be a werewolf anymore. And the book says that there's a way to fix things if he hasn't been a werewolf very long."

"but I thought -- "

"A _new_ werewolf," Igor said meaningfully. 

"Ah. And vhere do I come in?"

Igor tapped the cover. "That's you, ithn't it? Otto Keirch? Otto _Chriek?_ When the author biography mentioned 'a vell-educated man of szience whose other passions are iconography und young vomen', I thought of you."

"Szo you vant me to help you change zis man back into a human?" Otto asked.

"That's right."

"Who iz it, please?"

"Can't tell you that yet."

"Vould this be szomeone zer _Times_ vould be interested in?"

Igor considered matters. Mister Vimes didn't like the newspaper much. He hated vampires. Well, he hated everyone, but he didn't even let vampires join the Watch.

He was going to go _spare..._

***

"Tho the quethtion ith, Mister Vimes, how badly do you want to be changed back?"

Vimes noticed that when Igor was nervous, his lisp got more pronounced.

"Are you telling me," he said, "that in order to get my human life back, I've got to give the _Times_ an interview and I have to smile for an iconograph?"

"Yeth, thur," Igor said worriedly.

"That's all?"

"Well, I'm thure there's more to it than that. But that'th what you've got to agree to. And Otto wants to write a paper on it, if it works."

Vimes drummed his fingers on his sword belt. He was having difficulty with this bargain.

_You're just being ridiculous. A little loss of dignity and privacy's a small price to pay not to have to buy a flea collar._

_Or do you want to stay this way forever?_

Normally, that sort of question, coming from the insistent little inner voice of good sense, would have ended the decision. This time, however...

_You do want to be human again, don't you?_

_Don't you, Samuel Vimes?_

Hadn't it been sweet when he hit that man in a flying tackle, teeth bared? Hadn't it been good to roam the nighttime streets again, and wasn't the knowledge pleasing, that only silver or fire could kill you? Didn't he secretly envy Angua, all these years, the ability to track a killer by invisible scent?

They called him a terrier anyhow...

He'd barely gotten four hours' sleep. By the time he and Angua returned to the mansion, it was almost dawn. Then Sybil had woken him with the news that Igor had found a possible answer. And he'd had to wash and dress and walk with Igor down to the _Times_ office, which was getting awfully near. Behind them, Sybil and Carrot were strolling at a more leisurely pace, giving them time to talk. 

"Well, we ought to know what has to happen, first. I mean, if his idea of solving the problem is a vampire bite, thanks, but I'll just be over here looking at collars."

"It's not that bad, thur."

"We'll see. You didn't tell him it was me?"

"No, thur. I think he thinks it's Carrot, sir." Igor stepped through the doorway before Vimes could hesitate, and shouted. "OTTO!"

"Ah, Igor, in zis vay," Otto's voice wafted out from another room in the bustling, noisy Times office. The various employees of the newspaper spared barely a curious glance for them as they crossed the floor. 

Otto was bent over a bench in the little closet of a room, reading intently. He looked up when Igor and the Commander squeezed in, followed by Carrot and Sibyl. 

"Commander, an unexpected...pleasure," Otto said carefully. "Zis is zer Lady Sybil, iz it not? Und of course I know zer Captain."

"Morning, Mr. Chriek," Carrot said, touching his helmet. Otto closed the book, laying it aside. 

"Zo," he said. "Who is zer verevolf, pleaze? Or did zey send you instead, Commander?"

"It's Sam," Sybil said abruptly. Otto lifted a delicate black eyebrow.

"Zer Commander? How unusual. It vos not vhat I vos expecting. May I ask how, Szir Szamuel?"

"No," Vimes replied tersely.

"Very vell. How ironic, iz it not? A man famed for his misanecrophy -- "

"Mis-what?"

"You haff heard of misanthropy, yes?"

Vimes' lips worked silently. "Hatred of the dead -- "

"Ah?" Otto held up a finger. "Not qvite. **_A_** necrophy."

"Hatred of the _un_ dead."

"You haff hit zer nail on zer nose," Otto replied. "Villiam vill be very pleazed. You haff spoken vith Igor about zer...payment for zis proczedure?"

"An interview. And smiling for an icono. And you get to print something about it in some obscure thing nobody ever reads."

"More or less," Otto said composedly. "A szmall price to pay, all zings considered."

"What are the things we're considering, exactly?" Vimes asked. "What do you have to do to me?"

"It iz a very simple proszedure," said Otto. "But somevot dangerous. I shouldn't even be telling you zis, I vill have a very hard time of it at zer next Temperance meeting -- " he saw Vimes' look, and subsided. "All right. It iz understood zat zis iz for rare cases only. Bitten men such asz youszelf may be treated only for a short vhile after zey first Change. Szay...two veeks. After zat, zer change iz...permanent."

"I'll take my chances."

"In zer procedure, all zer...all zer blood iz removed, you see?"

" _What?_ " demanded Vimes. "I'm not having some vampire take all my -- "

"Hush, Sam," Sybil said sternly. "Do continue, Mr. Chriek."

Otto gave them the first nervous look they'd seen from him, and continued. "Zer morphic field is carried in zer blood, you undersztand."

"Well, thanks anyway," said Vimes. "But I -- "

"Tch!" Otto held up a hand. "Zen ve _replace_ zer blood vith new blood, from a villing donor. Two, I should szay. Igor, if you vould..."

"Hold out your hand please, Mister Vimes," Igor said. Vimes reluctantly obeyed.

"Ouch!"

"Just a pinprick," Otto said. Igor had stabbed his finger with a needle, and was collecting the blood on a little glass plate. Vimes made a disgusted face as he tasted it, then quickly spat.

"Ay bee," he said, making the sort of noise more generally associated with wine tasting. "Positive, I'd thay."

Otto looked pleased. "Very good. Zat means ve can get blood from anyvon."

"Ay bee?" Vimes asked suspiciously. 

"Oh yes. You haff heard zat zere are different blood types?"

"What, like ice-cream flavours? Chocolate ripple, strawberry pistachio?"

"Somezing like zat," Otto said gravely. "Und you vould not feed strawberry pistachio to a man who vos allergic to nuts, vould you?"

"Good." 

Vimes turned to see Sybil, her face set. "I'll give my blood," she said.

"Me too," Carrot added, drawing himself up. 

"You will not," Vimes answered. "Neither one of you. Carrot, you're going to have to take over while this goes on. Sybil, I'm surprised at you, someone's got to look after Sam."

"It vill not be zat bad," Otto assured him. "Ve can take blood from zer Captain, he iz a big sztrapping fellow, und ve vill need very little from Lady Szybil. You vill make your own, you szee, so ve need only put back vot is necessary."

"Angua can run the Watch -- " Carrot murmured. 

"I don't like it," Vimes said sharply.

"You do not haff to like it," Otto replied. "You do not haff to undergo it. I vill not expect an answer today. Und of course, until you do decide, Villiam and Sacharissa do not know of zis. It vill be my...vell, I szuppose zer Ankh-Morpork vord is 'coup'. I understand zer last man who tried to interview you on zomething vas back on his feet in two days' time."

Otto was not a particularly brave man, but he had lived quite a long time in quite a vicious part of the Disc, and he was able to hold Vimes' gaze for a good minute before looking away.

"I'll have an answer for you tomorrow," Vimes growled. 

"I avait it vith interest," Otto said, turning back to his book.

***

Sybil was a clever woman, and her husband was, generally, not a very complicated man; he thought complicated thoughts, but his instincts were simple. It was one of the things she most admired about him. 

She knew better than to push him on an answer for Otto. She simply followed him out of the _Times_ office and waited with Carrot and Igor as he lit a cigar and puffed it thoughtfully. When he finally came back to the present reality, he found himself the careful non-target of averted glances.

"I'm sure you have duties to attend to, Carrot," he said slowly. "Back to the Yard with you two."

Carrot saluted, still not quite meeting his Commander's eyes, and led Igor back down the street. Sybil waited a while longer.

"It's a small price to pay, Sam," she said softly. He glanced at her.

"Eh. Yes. Let's get a bite to eat," he said, absently.

"Sam?"

"Yes, dear?"

"We had breakfast an hour ago."

"Then let's have a walk."

Sybil shook her head and gave up. Sam on a case was excellent practice for parenting a five-year-old. He didn't really listen, he didn't really pay attention, and he didn't really care. She walked alongside him and talked to him about the dragons and some inconsequential household issues, while he smoked and thought and tossed his sword*.

* Which did keep people out of their way. A man who was that handy with a sharp weapon rarely had to step aside for anyone.

Yes, it was dangerous, but that was a minor consideration; living was dangerous, being a copper was dangerous, being Sam Vimes was apparently an inherent danger. Dangerous procedures did not hold much terror for him. 

And yes, Vimes' pride rebelled at the thought of tamely going along with Otto's interview and iconograph (he'd never smiled for an icono in his life), but Sybil was right; it was a small price to pay to be human again, and pride healed.

Did he want to be human again?

Of course. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? It wasn't any kind of a life, being afraid of the moon. 

On the other hand, he felt stronger than he had in years. Even now he could track people passing by their smell. To be able to slip into another body and wander the streets at night...to be the beast...

He snapped out of his musings when he realized that there was a Palace guard standing in front of them, politely blocking the sidewalk.

"The Patrician would like to see you," the guard said, and then, because Vimes was a bit more powerful than he used to be, "sir."

"Did I have a meeting...?" Vimes asked, turning automatically to Sybil, who shrugged. "Right, I'd best go."

"We'll have an early dinner this evening. Don't brood on it, Sam," Sybil said, patting him on the shoulder. 

***

 _Do I dare_  
Disturb the universe?  
In a minute there is time  
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. 

***

Down in the streets, the overall smell of "city" kept him from being distracted; besides, after a few hours human, you stopped noticing scents quite so sharply. Still, in the dry air of the Patrician's anteroom, five floors above the street, Vimes could read the history of the Oblong Office's morning. An Assassin had been here, probably Downey (peppermint humbugs, steel, and silk); Vetinari was writing -- there was the sharp scent of ink, and a warmer, thicker smell, sealing wax.

"He'll see you now," said a clerk, emerging from the office. Vimes rose and passed into the Patrician's chambers.

"Good morning, sir," he said. Vetinari looked up from his desk. 

"Is it?" he asked, laying his quill down. 

"Sir?"

"I understand you've been to the _Times_ office this morning."

"Following a case."

"Chriek explain the procedure to you, did he?"

Vimes gaped. He shouldn't have been surprised, of course Vetinari would find out; he was just surprised he'd found out this quickly.

"Come now, Vimes. The howl reports a new werewolf in the city, and the _Times_ reports that he likes to harass criminals. Take these into account with your early nights of late, your so-called illness yesterday, during a full moon, and a visit to Otto Chriek, whom I know personally to be a man of very, shall we say, broad interests regarding the supernatural...it was not difficult. I do occasionally partake of a little simple deductive addition."

Vetinari steepled his fingers, and looked at Vimes over their tips. Vimes thought privately that Vetinari's simple addition was complex trigonometry to anyone else. With some of the numbers missing.

"Not that it doesn't have its advantages, I suppose. Hard on a marriage, though. And of course there are those factions in the city which have a very... anti-undead sentiment, as I'm sure you are aware."

Vimes felt that Vetinari was quite subtly taking the piss, and suspected that the Patrician was having far too much fun doing it. 

"Werewolves, certainly, are more...acceptable than vampires, but I believe that there are those who do not differentiate. And, of course, silver is quite cheap at the moment. With the new mines opening in Uberwald, et cetera."

Vimes growled. Vetinari's eyebrows lifted fractionally, in warning.

"Is that a threat?" Vimes asked. 

"Sir Samuel, what possible gain would that give me? If I wanted you dead, I should have you killed. I would not do you the discourtesy of empty threats. It's very difficult to threaten a man over something he cannot control, at any rate. Therefore, what options remain?"

Vimes returned his stare, more calmly than he felt. "Coercion into taking Otto's offer, for one. Blackmail, for another."

"Such common, ugly words," the Patrician sighed. "Do I take the first option to mean you are considering...embracing the inner wolf, as it were?"

"That's no business of yours."

"You are a city employee, Vimes. That makes it my business," Vetinari said sharply.

"But not your decision," Vimes answered, just as sharply. Vetinari sat back, and smiled.

"Very true, your Grace," he said. "Did Mr. Chriek tell you about the side effect of the procedure? Short-term, but quite interesting. Humans also carry a certain morphic resonance in their blood. Carrot's...born-in charisma, for example."

Vimes blinked. 

"D'you mean," he said slowly, "that if I took a transfusion from Carrot, I'd stop knowing where commas go and instead know everyone's name?"

"I don't pretend to understand all the intricacies of it, but -- "

"I'd be a were-Carrot?"

"For a few days, until your own field re-asserted itself. I can see why Otto was afraid to tell you."

"But that's -- "

"Sir Samuel, I do not have time to counsel you on the appropriate course of action," Vetinari continued. "However, if you should decide to undertake this procedure, I should be happy to lend a hand. I understand two donors are required."

As usual, in any conversation with the Patrician that touched on matters outside of city governance, Vimes began to feel shock creep over him. " _You_...want to give blood?"

"You've bled often enough for the city, Vimes. Let it bleed for you a little." Vetinari glanced down at his desk. "Oh yes, and I've received a letter of complaint from the Guild of Plumbers, they say that the River Patrol boat is blocking several Guild sewage pipes. Sort it out, would you?"

Vimes, now thoroughly wrecked by the morning's events, fell back on his training and saluted. 

"That is all, Commander, thank you."

He didn't remember leaving the office or lighting the cigar stub or walking down to Sator Square, or even buying the sausage off Dibbler. He did come to his senses in time not to eat it, and some very unfortunate pigeons, who had never done anything to deserve it, got the sausage instead. 

_Vetinari and Carrot_ , he thought giddily. _I'll be a cold, calculating bastard who can't spell and thinks he's a dwarf._

And then it dawned on him.

And then he smiled.

He was getting faster, anyhow. It'd only taken him five or ten minutes to figure out Vetinari's angle in telling him, this time round. 

***

Angua was waiting for him when he got back to the Watch house; sitting on the steps leading up to his office, hands clasped between her knees, she looked almost like a child waiting for a parent's return.

"I couldn't go," she said, by way of greeting. "I couldn't sit there and listen to everyone talk about it. I'm sorry."

"For what? Sybil and Carrot came, and Igor."

"When are you going to do it? It has to be soon, doesn't it?"

He walked past her, gesturing for her to follow him up to his office. "I don't know that I'm going to have it done at all."

He could smell the confusion on her. "But you're not going to...are you?"

"I don't know yet." He held the door for her, and closed it behind them. Angua stood on the carpet in his poky little office, indecisive.

"You don't know what to tell me to do, do you?" he asked, circling her. "If you say I should take the treatment, that means it's a terrible thing to be a werewolf, and we both know that's not true. But if you say you think I shouldn't..."

"It's not really a good life, for the city," Angua said miserably. "It's hard on people. Especially if you're not born to it."

There was a long pause.

"It doesn't matter, really," Vimes said reflectively, moving away from her.

"Doesn't matter?" Angua asked. "It doesn't _matter_ to you? Being a werewolf?"

"No. The advice you have to give, Sergeant, it doesn't matter right now. There's nothing you can tell me that would help me in the slightest. So you don't have to tell me anything." He slouched into his seat, and smiled at her. "Feels better, doesn't it?"

She just stared at him. 

"You're not responsible for this. You don't have to be the one to fix it."

"It was my family -- "

"Angua," he said slowly. "You. Are not responsible. For this."

She looked like nothing so much as a dog that's been scolded. 

"We're going out tonight," he said. "It's the last night for the full moon, right?"

"Yes, sir..."

"I'll meet you outside the Hubwards gate, then, at Archer's Folly. After sundown. That's all, Sergeant."

She turned and went, her face closed, her body stiff and almost awkward with confusion. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so harsh, but Angua was a grown woman, and she could survive a few sharp words.

He felt for his cigars, selected, bit, spat, lit, inhaled. And began to sort through the paperwork on his desk with a considerably lighter heart.

The decision had been made. In the split second where Angua's own indecision had been so painfully plain, he knew. And that made everything easier.

***

He went home early and dressed for the occasion. He put on his second-best Watch armour, with fewer dents but without the gold decoration, and tucked his silver cigar case into his pocket with a handkerchief. He oiled his belt, and made sure his sword hung handily on it. He tucked the truncheon of office into the special pocket Sybil had sewn into his britches. 

There was dinner, good solid Watchmen's food, meat and starch. He talked to Sybil, who still had a watchful, questioning look in her eyes that he tried to ignore. He sat with his son and read "Green Eggs and Fried Slice" by Dr. Sluice, who had obviously encountered Sham Harga's cooking at some point in his literary career. He kissed them both, and left them in the nursery.

He kept a pair of cheap boots, these days, in a front hall closet, hidden from the servants and Sybil under an old mackintosh. He pulled them on and felt the stones of the ancestral corridor through his feet. 

Flat flagstone, evenly laid, with good solid mortaring inbetween. Yep, that was his front hallway, all right. Helmet, yes; sword, badge, boots, armour. Yes. Cigar case and truncheon. Yes.

Sometimes a man is defined by the things he carries with him.

He smiled to himself, at ease for the first time in days, and walked out into the city, which was turning red in the setting sun.

***

Angua, who had Changed before leaving her flat, smelled the cigar smoke long before she reached the Hubwards gate. 

Archer's Folly was a strange construction, a few minutes' walk outside the gate, invisible from the road leading in. A massive stone arch protruding from the wall gave some shelter, but its purpose was a mystery, like so many little architectural oddities are in old cities.

The Commander was seated on a low bench inside the Folly, out of the moonlight, smoking contemplatively. He looked like he used to, back before the Watch really started to grow, back before he was a Duke and a politician. She'd seen him like that often enough -- late at night, hunched in some warm, dry place in the cold, wet city, making no trouble on the empty early-morning streets. Back when there were only twenty or thirty of them, life seemed much simpler. Back when she didn't have to think about her family in Uberwald, or the trouble they could cause. 

Trouble, like Scruffy. 

She sat, a little distance away, and watched him. Mister Vimes was often in a world all his own, inside his head, thinking things the rest of the Watch could only guess at*. If it wasn't for the fact that he was a cynical, hard-edged bastard, he might even be considered a bit of a dreamer. Not more than once, however, and not without incurring terminal injuries. 

* Carrot called it "Thinking Elsewhere"; the rest of the Watch called it "Look out, don't bother him."

He was off in his head now, obviously; wasn't even smoking the cigar, just clenching it between his teeth and letting it burn. But even without thinking about it, she saw thirty years' coppering at work. He might not have noticed her, but his face was already turned to where she sat. 

She wondered, for the first time, if maybe -- when he was thinking elsewhere -- he was actually talking to the Beast.

Movement; he raised a hand in greeting, and stubbed out the cigar. He'd seen her. Or smelled her. 

She trotted forward, nodding her head in greeting; wolf language was mostly in the body, no matter what anyone said. He slid off the bench, crouched, and put a hand out, tapping the collar around her neck, the one that carried her Watch badge. 

"Does this make you any less a wolf?" he asked, absently. She cocked her head. "Angua, I'm not going to have Otto bleed me white. I think there are better ways."

He straightened, and unbuckled his cape and breastplate, setting them on the bench. His chainmail and sword-belt followed.

"No, it's all right," he said, when she turned her head away so that he could continue. "Do you want to see a magic trick, Angua?"

She blinked, wondering if her sudden confusion was because her Commander was acting like a loon, or because he was speaking Human and she was hearing Wolf. 

"A man's got to know who he really is."

She watched, horrified, as he reached into his pockets. One hand came out holding the truncheon, palm pressed to the little silver plate. The other was wrapped tightly around his cigar case. His skin was already turning red. To her werewolf eyes, the two objects glowed with a terrible black evil.

And then he stepped into the moonlight.

And Angua fought down a wave of terror.

***

He felt the moonlight, felt it reaching down and flipping every last little switch in a werewolf's body. The silver burned his hands, the moonlight wanted to Change him.

 _A man's got to know who he really is. So if the Beast is stronger, best to know it now_ , Vimes thought, as the skin on his hands began to whiten, to move through the worst of the pain into the burning, throbbing ache of badly scorched skin. He didn't think it was. But didn't he live in the daily fear of losing control of the chain that held it? Even after everything? It wasn't tame. It was still there, red-eyed and growling. Best to give in here and now if it was stronger, and if it wasn't, he might even get his humanity back.

And his thoughts in Vetinari's own voice: _So the choice is yours, isn't it? Humans have their own morphic fields. Angua was born to this, she hasn't got a choice, and that's all right. But you can choose, if you're strong enough._

_Well?_

One of his hands wanted to be a paw. The cigar case began to slide out of his palm. His ears felt as though they were moving. His eyes, changing, seeing the world differently -- caught between colour and dim shadows. 

But the silver still burned, and the pain was like a sharp slap to a drunk man. 

_So what are you? Human or werewolf?_

_What do you really want?_

Angua was whining, circling him, urging him to let go of the silver, don't let it kill you, you stupid git -- 

His teeth were sharpening, but he could still smile. _Yes, no matter what shape you're in, you're a stupid git, there's no doubting that._

His legs didn't want to work quite right. He felt his knees hit the ground, felt the sharpening of his teeth and -- 

And -- 

Sybil. Sybil and Sam. Sybil and Sam. Carrot, Angua, Detritus, Colon, Nobby, even Vetinari. That was the world he belonged to, the world of civilisation, even the civilisation that he hated for being flawed and dangerous. Sybil and Sam. Not in the world of the Pack. He didn't belong to the Pack, and they knew it. 

And he knew it. However much you want the Beast, you don't belong there. Any more than you belong to the past.

 _Sybil and Sam._

Angua was outright howling now, somewhere in the background, but all he could do was look down, at his hands. The cigar case had fallen first, and then the truncheon, and there were white-hot marks on his palms. One of them was a perfect reverse image of the little shield on the truncheon. The other one was square, lined where the grooves in the top of the case were.

But they were human hands. 

He looked up, into the dark starry sky that A'Tuin was constantly moving through, up at the little moon that circled the Disc nightly. 

Colours.

Angua's nose dug its way under his left arm, and she shook the fabric gently with her teeth.

Human arm.

His knees hurt.

Human knees.

He smiled again.

Stronger than the Beast. Stronger than a bite. A red stain welled up through his shirt, blood from the scar.

Human blood.

And then Sam Vimes fell over, passing out in a very human fashion.

***

 _We have lingered in the chambers of the sea_  
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown  
Till human voices wake us, and we drown. 

***

Angua, gripping her Commander's collar in her teeth, managed to drag him far enough into the stone gloom of Archer's Folly to Change herself, though it took a powerful force of will. His hands were blistered and bleeding, now, and his eyes rolled back in his head. She fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, cursing him for a damn fool, and tore off the arms of it, wrapping the tattered remains around herself because a naked woman and an unconscious man, outside the city walls, was not an ideal situation to be in. 

The Pack was howling. They'd heard her panicked calls for help. Now she wished she hadn't made them. 

She bit the fabric, ripping it into strips, tying them quickly around his bleeding hands and wrapping one as best she could around the scar that was trickling blood still. 

What had the bloody fool done? By rights he should have Changed as soon as he stepped into the moonlight. You did NOT fight the Change. Not if you wanted to keep your sanity. You didn't stand in the moonlight holding two pieces of silver while it burned your hands, and while your morphic field...

Well, what had it done?

It had blurred. As though a god had reached down and smeared a thumb across the crisp outlines of the Commander's body. And it had...it had _split_. 

He hadn't Changed. It had been terrible, like seeing Wolfgang after his fall down the river, patchy and unsure of just what he wanted to be. But he hadn't Changed. Anger and fear warred for dominance in her mind. 

That _bastard_ , he'd fought the Lore _again._

There was a growl outside the archway. She looked up. None of the Pack had seen her as a human, though most of them knew who she was. 

Butcher wasn't there. Neither was Bloody Haleh. _Well, we know what those two are doing, don't we,_ she thought bitterly. _The two who might actually keep this rabid lot from shredding us. Most of the decent ones are staying home tonight, aren't they? The ones who will actually stop and think before ripping a human's throat out._

 _Instead, there's Furry Dave, who's not very bright, and Barking Mad Barker, who hates all humans, and Lenny the Stink, the one Scruffy embarrassed in front of the whole Pack. Scruffy, who couldn't fight back even if he could Change, which at this point is highly unlikely..._

"What's this now?" Lenny barked, his tongue lolling out, amused in a predatory sort of way. "I think we've interrupted something, don't you, Barker?"

"Lover's tryst?" Barker answered. "I think a cold bucket of water'd do them a world of good."

"You don't want to fight me, Lenny," Angua said. She slid her legs up under her, ready to leap if she had to. Stay _human as long as you can, there's a dozen of them and one of you, and you have to be able to think clearly_...even as her own Beast, the one she'd been born with, growled and snarled. 

_There's two, remember that, there's the Pack and there's the Watch, and you belong to both of them..._

"Sure I don't," Lenny answered. "I want to fight _him_."

"Pick on a defenceless human. Butcher'll kill you if you do," she threatened.

"I'm not afraid of Butcher."

"You should be."

"I've got a score to settle with Scruffy, and that smells like Scruffy. Watch Commander, huh? Who'd have thought? Love bite, Dog Anny?"

Vimes moaned, softly, and one of his hands twitched. 

"The wolf who bit him," Angua said slowly, "Got his head bashed in against a rock. He played the Game and he bloody beat them all, Stink, as a human. So if you want a go at the Commander of the City Watch, you'd better be sure you can kill him, because otherwise he'll kill you."

"Him? He's a dog, like you. Look at that!" Lenny said, to the others, who were forming a casual, almost invisible semi-circle around the Folly. "She's got a collar! There's a reason we call her Dog Anny!"

One of the others snarled too. Angua let anger overtake fear, because they could smell fear, but they could also smell homicidal rage. 

Lenny leapt, not for the Commander, but for her. She brought her arms up and around in an arc that connected solidly with the side of his head, sending him sideways into the stone. He landed on all fours and shook his head, stumbling out into the moonlight again. Others were already moving forward.

"Mine," Lenny growled. "They're mine."

He leapt again, this time low, going for Vimes' throat. Angua tried to move, but she couldn't get in front of him fast enough -- 

There was a whizzing noise and a sharp _thock!_ and Lenny jerked sideways, a crossbow quarrel in his ribcage. Three more landed near the others. Someone was firing down from the top of the city wall. 

_Oh, gods, Carrot, thank you --_

"Cease and desist, or it's assault on an officer of the Watch!" Carrot's voice drifted down. "I mean that! It'll go very hard for -- "

Lenny snarled and made one last attempt. Whiz, _thock!_ A second bolt connected soundly, sending him backwards. The rest of the attackers were scattering. 

Bloody Haleh and Butcher came bolting through the grass from the direction of the Hubwards gate, teeth bared. For a moment Angua thought they were coming to kill her and the Commander, that they were going to stand with the Pack against the Watch, but then Butcher closed his jaws around Lenny's neck, and Haleh darted in front of Vimes, hackles raised. 

Butcher shook Lenny like a rag, throwing him to the ground and gripping the bolts with his teeth, pulling them until they came out. Lenny shrieked in pain. Haleh circled Angua and Vimes, worriedly.

"We heard the howl and thought we'd best get help," she whined. "Butcher didn't want humans interfering, but four against fifteen isn't a fair fight, even if it's us."

"You went to a human for us?" Angua asked softly.

"We are the Pack. We protect our own." Haleh sniffed the Commander's unconscious form, warily. "Even if he isn't anymore."

Beyond them, Butcher was ripping Lenny apart. Angua tried not to watch. That wasn't human justice or wolf justice. It was werewolf justice. It was terrible, but it was right, for them. 

"It's the way of things, Dog Anny. Humans oughtn't to become werewolves," Haleh said sadly, nudging Vimes' ear with her nose. "We are vicious beings. It's our nature. We can't choose one morality or another. But we can try to control it."

Lenny had stopped screaming. He just lay there, a bloody mess, barely breathing. Butcher sat on his haunches and howled, a great blood-drenched howl of triumph and warning. They could hear human feet pounding towards them. 

"Your Scruffy could have taught Lenny a thing or two about self-control," Haleh continued, as if her mate hadn't just thrashed a fellow creature to death's door. "Shame."

"What's a shame?" Angua asked, in a hushed whisper.

"Shame he's human again."

"Is he?"

"It's his rightful place, Dog Anny. Somehow he made it back." Haleh trotted over to the silver cigar case and the rosewood truncheon, which were still lying outside the Folly. She inspected them warily. 

"We'll take care of Lenny," she said, as Butcher picked up the limp werewolf in his enormous jaws. "Let humans take care of humans."

By the time Carrot arrived, leading a small army of constables, Haleh and Butcher had vanished. Angua, who would rather be a wolf than a half-naked woman, shrugged out of the shreds of Vimes' shirt and Changed just before Carrot rounded the corner. She pushed her nose against Vimes' shoulder, and looked up at the Captain, meaningfully. 

The other officers crowded around, until Carrot pushed them away; he checked the Commander's pulse, lifted him easily, and carried him out into the moonlight, expectantly.

Nothing happened. Not even a twitch, not even a sigh. 

"Get his things," he ordered, and the others hurried to pick up the truncheon and case, armour and the torn shirt. Angua rubbed up against Carrot's leg, close to tears with relief.

"Are you all right?" Carrot asked softly, while the others were busy. Angua bobbed her head. 

"CAPTAIN!" one of the officers called. "There's blood on the ground!"

"Just get his things, please," Carrot replied calmly. "I imagine..." he paused. "I imagine the Commander was pursuing a thief and was taken by surprise*. It's been a lean winter, the wolves around here are probably still looking for anything they can get. You, Blenton, run up to Scoone Avenue and tell Lady Sybil the Commander's been hurt and we're taking him to the Watch House. Someone find me a cart to put him in, we'll have Igor take a look at him. Crossbows out, everyone, those wolves could still be around."

* Which considering Vimes' pride was almost as bad as being a known werewolf, but not quite.

Angua, watching the Commander's head loll over the edge of Carrot's arm, felt a shiver of fear returning. 

***

Igor, fussing and making various professional noises of concern, dealt with the scar first, which didn't want to stop bleeding; when he finally did stitch it up and apply some sort of thick, clear salve to it, Vimes moaned again, and his eyes opened.

"It's burning," he said, hoarsely. 

"Yes, sir," Igor replied unflappably. "Lie still, pleath."

He watched, worriedly, as Vimes drifted back out of consciousness and his tense muscles relaxed. He turned over the right palm and unwrapped the makeshift bandage from it. Angua paced back and forth under the table, whining, while Carrot went upstairs to deal with the milling policemen who weren't quite sure what to do. 

He arrived in the front office at the same time as Sybil, who turned pale at the sight of her husband's armour lying empty on the table. Her hands trembled as she reached for it.

"Where's Sam?" she asked.

"Igor's seeing to him. He'll be fine," Carrot said, with all the confidence of the desperately hopeful. 

"What happened?"

Carrot looked around at the others, who were watching him carefully. If Mister Vimes was out of things, that meant Captain Carrot was in charge. 

"Bandits," he said finally. 

***

The basement cells were by and large a damp, chilly place, bad for recovering from injuries. Igor, in his first days at the Yard, had taken a sledgehammer and some mortar and built a chimney up from the furthest room. He'd lined the room with some old tapestries from the attic, and it says a lot for an Igor's interest in anatomy that he didn't see anything inappropriate about frolicking nymphs decorating the walls of a sickroom. They were certainly educational, though not perhaps in the way he intended.

At any rate, it was a warm, dry place with a crackling fire, and it was good for invalids who couldn't be moved very far. Sam Vimes lay on the bed closest to the fire, well-bandaged, while Sybil slept fitfully on another bed nearby. 

Angua, who'd been coaxed back up to the second floor barracks by Carrot for at least a few hours' sleep, found herself wandering aimlessly down to the sickroom as soon as she was dressed the following morning. She wanted to see things for herself, wanted to ask Vimes some questions. 

He hadn't woken again. Igor, who'd kept vigil, allowed her to relieve him and went off for some shut-eye. She sat down in one of the hard wooden chairs, watching the fire intently.

She must have let her thoughts drift, she must have been tired, or she would have smelled Haleh long before the woman entered the room. And it was a woman; Angua had never seen most of the Pack in their human shapes. She was followed by a man who could only be Butcher. 

"We wanted to pay our respects," Haleh said softly. "This is Scruffy, then."

Angua nodded and crossed her arms protectively against her chest. Werewolves, for all they were pack animals, did not like other werewolves in their own private territory.

Haleh and Butcher were a strange pair, as humans. Butcher she'd known in Uberwald, but Haleh wasn't from a mountain clan, at least, that she knew of -- probably she came from the four or five wide-scattered plains families. She was tall and lean, dark-haired, with a predatory look and the smell of the slaughterhouse district still on her. She seemed uncomfortable in her clothing. Butcher was not that much taller than her, with sandy hair and an ugly but friendly face that belied keen, intelligent eyes. 

Angua noticed that they were examining her, too.

"You're uncommonly pretty," Butcher said bluntly. "If I'd known _he_ was head of the Watch, I'd not have called him Scruffy. He's got a hell of a thousand-yard stare to him. I should have guessed."

Haleh touched one of the Commander's bandaged hands.

"Lenny has been...removed," she said quietly. "He is no longer a member of the Pack."

"Is he still alive?" Angua asked.

"If he survives the plains," Butcher answered. "I left him near the coaching road. If he's not hunted down, he should live on. More's the pity, but I believe that's a just sentence. Yes?"

"Mister Vimes wouldn't want him killed. He was just doing what werewolves do," Angua murmured.

"He was doing what beasts do," Haleh replied. "We can choose not to be beasts. This one did."

"How did he do it?" Butcher asked.

"I don't know. He just fought the Change. He was holding silver."

"Good for him," said Haleh. "Every day we walk the fine line, Dog Anny. We can choose to be vicious beasts, or we can choose to accept the rule of law. We had hoped that giving Lenny the power of the law would make him respect it. Obviously, we were wrong. We would like to offer you his position in the Pack."

Angua stared at her.

"I know you don't run with us very often, but if you did...the next time someone tries to attack a human, perhaps someone will speak out before it comes to blood," Haleh continued.

"Growler?" Angua asked.

"If you'd like it," Butcher said.

"Can I think about it?"

There was a grunt, and a new voice spoke. "She's already a copper. What more do you want?"

The Commander had rolled onto his side, and was staring at them with clear eyes, though his face was a mask of pain. "I think I should have let Otto bleed me," he said, with a weak smile. Angua matched it.

"You're a stupid git for fighting the Change," she said.

"I know."

"It was bloody dangerous, what you did."

"It had to be done."

"Lenny tried to kill you."

"Did he succeed?" Vimes asked, with a grimace. Haleh laughed gently.

"Congratulations, Scruffy. You fought the Lore with sheer force of personality. No wonder your people are so loyal. You must be a remarkable man."

"Pull the other one," Vimes mumbled, his eyelids drooping.

"We'll go, then, Dog Anny," Butcher said. "You think about what we said."

They had made it all the way to the stairs before Angua came to the doorway, torn indecisively between following them and staying with the Commander. 

"Butcher, Haleh, wait," she called. They paused, and she glanced hesitantly at Vimes, who flicked the few un-bandaged fingers he had, and then winced. She left the doorway.

"I'll be Growler," she said. Butcher's ugly face broke into a broad smile. 

"See you at the next full moon, then," he said. "And...wear your badge. On your collar. It suits you."

Haleh gave her a last, brilliant smile before the pair climbed the stairs. From behind, she could hear her Commander calling for her assistance, and Lady Sybil's sleepy voice. 

Two packs. The wolves and the Watch.

That was all right. No matter where you go, you're a copper.


End file.
